


What You Don't Leave Behind

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: sherlockbbc_fic, F/M, John is a Very Good Doctor, John-centric, PTSD John, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:42:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John helps a former soldier through a flashback. Then they have tea.</p><p>Written for <a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=129116166#t129116166">this prompt</a> at Sherlock BBC Fic but taking some liberties. Thanks to Lindentreeisle for betaing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Don't Leave Behind

It's different, coming back. You're home, but you keep seeing where the edges of things, where it might all fall apart. You keep scanning the edges of crowds, looking for movements, something suspicious. I mean, it's not like there weren't bombings in the US, right? It's not like I was being paranoid.

Well, okay. I was being paranoid. But I could justify it, that was the thing. I could justify the whole fucking thing in my head. Normal people didn't know what I knew. They hadn't seen what I'd seen. How could they begin to understand it? It was months before I stopped jumping at shadows, expecting all hell to come after me when I let my guard down for a minute.

But I did it. I got better. CBT, meds, the whole nine yards. Went out by myself. Made myself sit with my back to the door. Some nights I could sleep without thinking of the sound an IED made when it went off. Got a job, worked hard, got a promotion, got sent to a conference in England. I'd never been to England. I was excited. I put my therapist on speed dial and bought a trenchcoat. I felt great, even in the security lines. Even when I was crammed on an airplane for the first time since my trip home.

The conference was good. Busy crowds, but in a good way, and people I didn't have to excuse myself around or explain myself to. Most of our sales staff was ex-military, but the engineers might as well have been from Mars. But the Arms and Armament conference? I was right at home. I spent half an hour flirting with a cute guy from _Jane's_ who wanted to know more about our equipment. And maybe mine. I got his number, anyway.

I was on cloud nine walking back to my hotel.

But of course, that meant I'd let my guard down.

I had to piece together what had actually happened later. A delivery truck took a corner too fast, slid into a bike, a kid started screaming....

They told me later that it was probably the crash, the sound, sparks coming off the vehicle. I ran toward the noise, and the kid was under the bike, screaming. He wasn't trapped, he was just terrified, but the truck had tipped over, its weight pressing down on the bike, and the bike wasn't going to handle the weight for long. I remember seeing where the metal was starting to shear. I don't remember pulling the kid to safety. I don't remember the bike collapsing, the truck falling.

I don't remember telling people to stay back. I don't remember shouting in Dari. I don't remember any of that. I remember reaching for my gun and wondering what the fuck had happened to it, to any of my gear. I remember someone coming up to me and trying to help and me telling them to fuck off. They used to do that, sometimes. Pretend to be on your side. Pretend to be your soldiers. You couldn't trust them. Couldn't trust anyone. I held down. That's all you can do sometimes, hold down and wait for help, or death, and hope it's clean.

And then someone came over to me. I found out later he'd had to talk the police into letting him get close. "Soldier!" he said. Not nice, not kind. The way you'd talk to another soldier, plain and simple. He asked me where my unit was.

"I don't fucking know," I said. "I can't fucking -- the kid, is he okay? Where's the kid?"

"He's fine," he said. "His mother's got him. You're American, right? Captain John Watson. Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Come on, let's get you out of the shit."

"I don't--" I didn't trust him.

"Look, you need your your unit, right?"

I nodded.

"Come on. You Yanks are always getting yourselves lost. We'll find them, all right? Come on back with me, we'll get this sorted." I looked into his face. He was English, all right. Not that big, pushing forty if he wasn't already there. Little brush of a mustache on his upper lip. He was handsome when you looked at him twice, but I wouldn't have looked at him twice if I'd just passed him on the street. But the authority was there. And importantly than that, he looked kind.

He held out his hand.

"All right," I said, and took it.

And just like that, I was back, snapped into reality, into the fact that I was on a London street with people staring at me like I'd grown an extra head, holding the hand of a pale guy in a business suit. "Oh, God," I said. "Oh, I'm so sorry--"

"It's all right," Watson said. "Come on. We'll get some tea, clear your head. Or coffee, if you'd like."

No one had offered me their arm before. I took it. "Tea's fine."

Watson nodded at a pretty black woman with curly hair who I hadn't even noticed. "Are we done? She's a hero, but I don't think she saw anything of use. Best if she gets on."

He's not asking her, I thought. He's _telling_ her. There was something unspoken between them, some kind of conflict, and Captain Watson had the upper hand.

"Yeah," she said, conceding. "Get on. And...thanks, John."

"All right, then," he said, turning away from her abruptly. "Come along. There's a good place just down the street."

"I'm so sorry," I said. My head was still spinning. Just a minute ago, I'd been on a main street in Kabul, not here. Just a minute ago, I'd been stuck hopelessly in my past. "I wish--"

"There's no need for that," he said, guiding me slowly down the road. "Please. You don't need to apologize." He was very calm, his pace steady. "You likely saved that boy's life."

"But then I--" I gestured at nothing. "Freaked out. Christ, I thought I was through with all that crap."

"Sneaks up on us sometimes," Watson said. "I know."

"Fusiliers, huh? You were out in the country."

"Most of the time," he said. "We had a few missions in Kandahar. A lot of mountain combat."

"And you...you had it too."

"Yeah," he said, his face opening up a little. "Oh, yeah." He shook his head. "Spent my first months back in a terrible little room I'd rented, wondering if I should just end it all." He shook his head. "Couldn't work, could hardly walk-- bloody hell, I've left my cane, haven't I." He looked back, then shook his head.

"We can go back and--"

"I'm not going back for _that,"_ he said. "Not and see Donovan again, Christ. I should be all right for a while yet. It's psychosomatic, comes and goes." He shook his head. "More gifts from Afghanistan."

"They just keep coming, don't they?"

His smile was grim. "Sign up and see the world. Or at least bits of it. Hope you don't mind the mental trauma or lengthy hospital stays."

The cafe was nice, and the tea quite good: I'd gotten kind of a taste for it in the field, and English tea was pretty good. I still liked kahwah better, but it didn't taste the same outside Afghanistan, except for this one place I'd found in Boston that was run by immigrants.

"Thanks for doing that," I said to Watson. "For everything."

He shook his head. "I had a friend," he said. "He...I guess you'd say he saved me. The least I can do is give people a hand when I can."

"Had?"

He looked away.

"I'm sorry," I said. I'd lost friends too. A couple in-country, and a couple after, when they just couldn't escape it.

"Yes," Watson said, and he couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Saved your life and he couldn't save himself." I shook my head. I knew that story too.

"Something like that," he said. "Yeah."

I thought about saying I'm sorry again, but I knew from experience how hollow those words could be. "Best friend?"

He nodded.

"How long ago?"

He shook his head. "Long enough. Look, let's-- I think we both need to talk about something else, don't you?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."

"So what are you doing in London? Are you living here?"

"Just here for a conference. I work for Smith & Wesson."

He smiled, and with that his face grew more handsome, more charming. "No."

"Yes! I got the job after my discharge. I work in R & D, I'm here for a conference."

"You left the military and went into weapons manufacture."

"More or less," I said.

He shook his head, chuckling.

"What about you?"

"I'm a doctor," he said. "But I was one in the Army as well. So not quite the same."

"Funny how these things work, huh?"

"Yeah," he said into his tea. "Funny."

"I haven't even told you my name," I said. "It's Jennifer. Jennifer Michaels. Lieutenant Colonel."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Jennifer," he said, extending his hand over the table.

I shook it properly this time. "Likewise, Captain Watson."

By the end of the night, I was calling him John. But I don't kiss and tell.


End file.
